Svyatoslav Khanenko, founder of SQLAB – “a clinic for healthy people”, the first biohacking clinic in Eastern Europe

We can postpone anything, but not the care of our health. A pause in the implementation of this project is the direct path to a degradation and disease.

Have you ever wondered how much valuable information you can find out about a person simply by asking him: “How did you spend your quarantine?” This is different from “How did you spend your summer vacation, winter or May holidays”. Everyone had his (her) own way of perceiving the forced global lull. Judging by conversations, stories, and posts on social media, I had an idea that for many quarantine was an extra vacation. There was a feeling of another New Year, a kind of a chill out, full of relaxation, carelessness, alcohol and overeating from morning until late night with TV turned on for a background. “We were ordering food delivery and going out mainly to replenish the wine stock,” my Facebook friend's comment read.

A lot was set to pause, postponed “for the future”. But what kind of a future we’ll have with such an approach? A low physical and mental activity, a neglect of our main resources can lead to very unpleasant results. What are we talking about? Time and health are our highest values. No matter how stressful the situation might be, no matter how much occasional free time the circumstances present us, we have no right to lose self-control. We can't afford to throw your life down the drain. With self-control and awareness, people should remain leaders of their lives regardless of the circumstances. What do I mean by a leadership approach? A break is a great opportunity to reboot and rest. I mean not a mindless pseudo-vacation filled with procrastination, alcohol and overeating, but a conscious recovery and replenishment of the energy reserve. I highlight three main components of this approach:

1. Awareness of the fact that to be healthy does not only imply not to suffer a disease in a given moment. Your health is a holistic well-being of your body, mind, spirit, social connections and the environment. Accordingly, a conscious recovery of health involves the development of each of the components. Healthy habits, a proper nutrition, a proper water balance (based on 40 ml of water per 1 kg of body weight), a good sleep, and a balanced workout – these are the minimum prerequisites to ensure your body's well-being in a lockdown.

 

Filtering information stream, a positive mindset, and self-development can nourish our minds. Healthy values and faith are the key to the well-being of the spirit. High-quality communication with our close people, constructive dialogue with our partners, contractors, like-minded people provide for the well-being in the context of social ties.

 

Just think of it: a forced isolation, in fact, allowed us to qualitatively filter the circle of communication, make it ecological, and weed out toxic contacts. Environment: there was enough time to analyze the quality of food and water that you consume, enjoy leisurely walks in the fresh air, think about the degree of comfort of living conditions, and become more attentive to hygiene issues (elementary, the virus taught us to keep our hands clean).

 

2. Following the principle of continuity. I have noticed that many people, who in pre-quarantine times began to cultivate healthy habits, abandoned them for the time of isolation. You can put off for the future many things: projects, trips, purchases, events and a million more other. The only thing you cannot postpone is a care of your health. This is the general basis, more specifically, the basis of life. When you lose your job, money and even time, you can still keep moving and make up for the losses. When you lose your health, you can no longer do anything.

 

Once you have decided to maintain this resource in a working condition to strengthen the basis of your life and activity, you are not supposed to stop. This journey has no stops. Quarantines and other force majeure will do be happening. Alas, our new reality will be full of surprises, and not always pleasant ones. But this should not prevent us from reaching the once set goal – to be healthy people, to feel good and to give priority to our condition. And the main thing is to feel yourself free. After all, freedom does not imply just external circumstances. Primarily, it is your internal state of mind based on the ability to control your life, your reactions and habits by yourself.

 

3. An entrepreneurial approach to your health. People successful in entrepreneurship tend to contemplate on future investments. They look for projects to invest their money. When considering investment opportunities, people often miss the most important project of their life that is taking care of their health. And in vain. Dividends from investments in your health can be the most weighty and significant. This approach underlies biohacking, which involves managing your health as a project to increase productivity in all aspects of life. Similar to other projects, the Health project involves a comprehensive diagnostics, goal setting, development and implementation of an investment strategy, preventive support measures to avoid unpleasant surprises and disruptions.

The virus is an example of an unpleasant surprise. People with a weakened immunity suffered from the virus most. They had complications. Those who took care of their health and strengthened their immunity had no symptoms even if infected. The pandemic situation should have been a lesson for us. Viruses will come and go. New viruses will emerge. New epidemics and pandemics will hit us. Most of us cannot influence the processes of creating a vaccine and finding effective medications and treatment protocols for a new disease. However, it is in our power to attend to the general state of our health in order to meet the “enemy” fully armed. We will also need a good physical form in the future, when new challenges arise in the unpredictable external environment. We must set up our body for a long, productive and happy life in the future.